“Mind The Gap!” –
January 12, 2005 - Article by Maha Akeel on Saudi Female Singer Tuha
September
21, 2004
November 27, 2006 - Your Voice Matters
Your voice matters.
Whoever you
are,
Reading this,
Your voice matters.
Your thoughts
matter.
Your feelings matter.
Your ideas matter.
Your fears matter.
Your hopes matter.
Every word of every sentence matters.
Every smile
matters.
Every tear matters.
Every laugh matters.
Don't ever
doubt that you make a difference,
That you matter.
Share yourself.
Write your ideas.
Speak them out loud.
Tell your story.
Don't ever
doubt that we'll listen.
We women are always listening.
Don't ever doubt
That you matter.
"Time is like a sword. If you don't cut it, it will cut you." - old Arab proverb told to me by Abla Shocair.
"A new moon teaches gradualness and deliberation and how one gives birth to oneself slowly. Patience with small details makes perfect a large work, like the universe. What nine months of attention does for an embryo, forty early mornings will do for your gradually growing wholeness." Rumi - from "New Moon, Hilal"
Sami e-mailed me this one by Hafez:: "When the violin can forgive the past, it starts singing. When the violin can stop worrying about the future, you will become such a drunk laughing nuisance that God will then lean down and start combing you into his hair. When the violin can forgive every wound caused by others, the heart starts singing."
Emerson writes, "Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men to win them."
Another Rumi: "Your intelligence is split into a hundred busy tasks, in thousands of desires, in large and small things. You must unite these scattered parts with love and become as sweet as Samarkhand and Damascus. Once you are unified, grain by grain, then you can be stamped by the royal seal."
I hope that cleaning my desk will help me become as sweet as Samarkhand and Damascus. We'll see.
It has been fascinating to follow the Saudi municipal elections from Boston, one of the oldest cities in the U.S., which has been called the 'Cradle of Liberty', and the 'Athens of America'. I'm an American woman, so I know it's really none of my business that logistical and social challenges prevented women from taking part in the Saudi elections. It's none of my business that some conservative Saudi males are upset that with the idea of women voting, because then they might hear the sound of women's voices and see photographs of women candidates, and even read the names of women candidates in the press. These things are considered improper by some ultraconservative Saudi males. As Mody Al-Khalaf points out in her article above, this isn't a logical argument, because Saudi women already speak on radio, appear on television and print their names in the paper. However, I'm not Saudi and I'm not a Saudi woman. It's not my country, and these issues are Saudi problems. But I keep reading that 'Saudi Arabia's culture is unique', with the implication that it can't change because of its uniqueness.
Then I remembered some things about Boston, and I began to think that American women and Saudi women have more in common than we think. Saudi Arabia is 'less unique' than perhaps some might realize, or care to admit. In Boston of 100 years ago, it was considered inappropriate for a woman's name to appear in the paper more than three times during her life; when she was born, when she married, and when she died. A 'proper' woman never walked on the street unaccompanied. It finally took an alliance of highborn and working class women to change many of the laws and practices about women and public space in Boston (see Women and the City: Gender, Space and Power in Boston - 1870-1940 by Sarah Deutsch). More startling, I also recently learned that in the early days of the American colonies, many American colonists wanted their women veiled, and they also hanged people for religious deviance. One of my own ancestors was an early settler in the town of Ipswich, Massachusetts in the 1620's. Maybe he was one of these who supported these ideas! So, just as our own cultural and social norms were once quite different from what they are now, so it is also true that some of these 'unique' social issues that are cited in arguing against Saudi women voting, are really not that unique. They can be overcome, and will most likely they fade with time.
When I lived in Saudi Arabia twenty years ago, I used to accept the idea that Saudis weren't ready for social change that would make something like women's suffrage possible. In fact, that concept seemed unimaginable back then. But when I came back to my own country and went to graduate school to delve further into Middle Eastern history, my heart began to speak different words to me. How can I be a true American if I believe that our system of constitutional democracy could only flower in a country like ours, with the special historic circumstances that we had in the 18th Century? To me, that's racist. That's like saying, only 'we' are good enough, or only 'we' deserve the benefits of democracy, like our Bill of Rights. That's like concluding that others, (i.e. everyone in Africa and Asia and the Middle East) are not 'advanced enough' to handle it. I don't think Saudi Arabia will or should become a carbon copy of the US, and it seems certain that Saudi society will progress in a unique way. I just think women deserve to be involved in the process. Why? Because they can do so much good.
Last Spring, while back in Jeddah, I spoke with many women. It is clear to me that they are ready for change. They are educated and anxious to do their best. Each woman I met was as impressive and singularly stereotype-busting as the last. From the Bedouin-born mother from Taif, to college students, the bank economist, the newspaper columnist, the college dean, and her administrators, every one of them was hardworking, virtuous, and conscientious. Most importantly, each was anxious to do her best for society. These encounters got me thinking back over the years, to all the women I met when I lived in Saudi Arabia. I can't think of a single Saudi woman I met who was anything less than that. From the barely literate, cheerful ladies selling spices in the country markets, to the elite salon-hosting urbanites, all of them are extraordinary. And it's sad, in my opinion, that their talent and their enthusiasm to make their country better had to be excluded this time. I hope next time they can participate.
All this being said, I believe that Saudi women will get the vote. The caliber, the strength, the courage and the determination of the women I met, and others I heard about, leave no doubt. Saudi women work hard behind the scenes at all levels of society to improve things. They are very impressive, and they will do so much more good for the country once they are allowed to help on a larger scale. So I add my best wishes to them for their success as they gain a more public forum and a more powerful platform to improve society.
After reading repeatedly about all the logistic and social roadblocks to having women participate in the elections, it felt good to imagine how things will be different when women do participate eventually. Here is my list of what might happen. Maybe we all need to do a little 'imaging' on this, to focus on the benefits. To me the benefits far outweigh the difficulties.
- Higher
voter participation. Women would be enthusiastic participants
and would encourage the men in their family to vote.
- More talented candidates. Women are said to outperform their
male counterparts in the Saudi school system. This means that all the women
candidates would likely be ultrahigh achievers, boosting the overall talent
pool of the candidates, and resulting in a better societal outcome.
- Strong work ethic. Saudi women are known to be sincere and
hard working as well as service oriented and concerned for others. Sounds
like the ideal civil servant to me!
- Women elected officials would, by their very existence, be a sensible and
practical voice countering the attitudes of those who reject change. They
need an official voice and official agendas to do this.
- Urban planning would become much more family-friendly and
women-friendly. Life would improve for all Saudi Arabia's citizens.
- Women candidates would be able to meet personally with women voters, so
women voters could express their concerns directly with no interference. After
the elections, women would have ombudsmen to help with their issues such as
the handling of divorce cases in the courts.
- Public society would become more transparent.
- Young women would have a new generation of female role models,
who combine good morals and ethics with a positive public role as they improve
society. They would see women gaining respect and recognition for their work
in the public sphere, which in turn would allow the younger women to aim higher,
further benefiting society.
- The public cooperation of male and female citizens would be
a model and an agent for creating a more balanced norm in which men and women
work together in public to advance their society. Actually, this gets me thinking
about an idea for my next 'blog'. Historically, Saudi men and women cooperated
in many unique ways in Saudi Arabia's villages, towns and tribes. So in a
way, getting women involved in municipal governance will bring things closer
to the way they were 'traditionally'.
September
21, 2004
-
Quilting bees – in rural areas, women get together to work on a quilt in a group to get it done faster.
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People volunteer to read books to blind people and to deliver meals to ‘shut-ins’.
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Barn-raisings – an entire community would build a barn together in one day. Some Mennonite communities still do it.
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There are suburbs and small towns in the US where it’s so safe that people don’t lock the doors to their homes and they leave the keys in their cars in the driveway at night.
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In Portland, Oregon, the city donated a large number of bicycles painted orange that anyone can ride for free, and leave out for the next person.
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People come together to play music and sing in volunteer orchestras and marching bands, playing for town celebrations.
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The first public library in the US was started by Ben Franklin and some of his friends, not a government agency.
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While we have high divorce rates, we throw big parties for the couples who stay married for 40 years or more. My own parents made it to 61 years last December.
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At some country fairs, they hold laughing contests and wife carrying contests.
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People commit quiet acts of cross-cultural hospitality, like hosting exchange students from all over the Middle East in their homes.
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Middle Eastern love songs are brimming with passion. There’s a song for just about every kind of love you can imagine.
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There is a time-honored tradition of active volunteerism to help the less fortunate, especially among women.
- The editorial pages in Middle Eastern newspapers are vibrant forums of discussion on all kinds of tough issues.
- Egyptian cinema had a golden age in the 1940’s and 1950’s .
- Extended family members support each other generously, usually without expecting repayment.
- People learn to play traditional musical instruments as an avocation and play in amateur ensembles and orchestras.
- Iranians play a poetry parlor game in which one person recites a line of poetry. The next person has to pick up where the last one left off with another poetry quote that begins with the last word of the previous line. And they even try to stick to the repertoire of one poet!
- The Middle East produces music videos called ‘Video Clips’ that mix Middle Eastern, western and Indian influences.
- Persians have an ancient and complex etiquette system known as Ta’arof.
- Many Middle Eastern families are ethnically diverse, especially in the cities.
- Women
sing and play music in every Middle Eastern country, including Saudi Arabia.
- Middle Easterners love their soap operas. Not OUR 'soaps', THEIR 'soaps'.
- The
Turkish Ottoman sultans had female court musicians and composers.
- Lebanese poets hold all-night singing poetry duels called zajal, brimming with satire and hilarious insult.
- Middle Easterners love to tell jokes. Who are the funniest? I nominate the Egyptians.
- Middle
Easterners regularly commit quiet acts of cross-cultural hospitality. They
invite complete strangers to visit their homes. Ask any westerner who has
lived in the Middle East about this.